The number and variety of different products being sold in stores has increased and continues to increase at a rapid pace. This abundance of different products is a result not only of increased demand on the part of consumers and the development of more and more specialized products on the part of manufacturers, but also of the emergence of enormous warehouse-type stores in which retailers attempt to provide every imaginable product (within broadly-defined product areas) to consumers. Because of this huge increase in the number of available products being sold in an individual store, shopping has become a frustrating experience for many shoppers. Instead of being able to quickly find the products in the stores that they are interested in purchasing, shoppers often must seek the proverbial “needle in the haystack” when searching for desired products or else must walk through every aisle of the store in order to guarantee that they are not missing the products that they desire.
Of course, modern stores typically do have a variety of displays or signs posted throughout the store that direct customers (at least in a general fashion) towards particular types of goods. Such signs are often hung from the ceilings of the stores or posted at the ends of aisles. However, in many cases such signs are not an adequate mechanism for providing customers with sufficient information to allow them to easily find the products for which they are searching. Not only are the signs sometimes difficult to read, but also the signs are limited in that only a small amount of information can be fit onto the signs.
Consequently, shoppers often resort to a common fallback—asking an employee of the store to direct them to the products they are looking for. Such behavior, while often allowing shoppers to find the desired products within a store, has significant disadvantages. First, store employees are not always able to provide clear instructions and, indeed, frequently do not themselves know where various products are located. As a result, shoppers who decide to ask store employees for directions often must ask more than one employee for such directions.
More importantly, a constant barrage of product location questions to employees from shoppers invariably detracts from the employees' productivity. Not only are the employees distracted from the work they are otherwise performing, but also answering questions can significantly detract from the time the employees actually are performing their work, particularly since the employees often physically walk with the shoppers to the location of the products to help the shoppers find what they are looking for. Employees often must accompany the shoppers simply because the employees themselves are not exactly sure of the precise location of the products in question.
While both customers and many employees of a store often are not fully aware of the locations within the store of the various products being sold by the store, this is typically not because the information is not available. A store typically has one or more managers or other employees who are in charge of maintaining inventory within the store, and who consequently know the locations of most, if not all, of the products within the store. Moreover, many modern stores have a computerized or other information system that is utilized to keep track of the stores' inventory. Such inventory systems can keep track of, in addition to the types and brands of products being sold, the vendors of the products being sold, the prices for which the products are being bought and sold by the store, the number of each type of product that is remaining within the store and even the locations of the various products within the store.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,068 shows one system that has already been designed to assist customers and others in locating products within stores. According to this system, customers in a store are provided with relay units that are either mounted on shopping carts that the customers push around within the store, or simply carried around the store by the customers. The relay units are coupled to a central computer by way of light or radio frequency (RF) signals. When the customers begin shopping, they identify from a list those products that they are interested in purchasing. Upon finishing this entry of information, the customers are provided with graphical and other information indicating the location of the desired products within the store and, as they progress through the store, are provided with prompts/reminders when they approach the locations of the products that were originally indicated.
Although this known system is capable of providing product location information to customers, the system has several, drawbacks. The optical, RF and/or sensor equipment required by the system for allowing communication between the central computer and the relay units, for determining the positions of relay units, and for determining when the relay units are approaching the locations of products that have been selected by the customers, is complicated. Because the relay units are mobile, the relay units can be lost or damaged by customers. Indeed, relay units that are coupled to shopping carts can be damaged as a result of a variety of circumstances, including exposure to the elements when shopping carts are left outside of the store. For these reasons, the known system may be undesirably complicated and expensive.
From the above, it is apparent that it would be advantageous if stores had systems within the stores for providing product location information to customers (or employees or others). It would further be advantageous if these systems were easily accessed by customers and provided information in a rapid and convenient manner. It would be particularly advantageous if access were facilitated by employing a system with user interfaces that were conveniently accessible by customers from a number of locations within a given store.
It would also be particularly advantageous if access was facilitated by employing a system having user interfaces that made use of modern electronic interface technologies. At the same time, it would further be advantageous if the system utilized a simple array of electronic technologies so that the system could be inexpensively installed within stores and was robust and easily maintained. It would be particularly advantageous if the system were interconnected with existing (or new or modified) computerized or other information systems within stores whereby existing inventory information could be easily obtained and relayed to customers.